In May 2026, I took my first solo trip to New York City, and it still feels like a dream, like something out of a Shah Rukh Khan movie. I had only ever seen this city, and the Statue of Liberty, in superhero movies, and now I was flying there alone, with my own money. It started badly. On the first day my flight was canceled, and the airline put me on another one with a layover. Five minutes before we landed in New York, my phone buzzed with an acceptance from the University at Buffalo for my PhD. I sat there smiling at the screen while the plane came down over the city. The subway confused me right away. I found my hostel near Central Park, where they gave me the upper bunk, which was a pain, and I changed my clothes and went out. At a small Italian restaurant I ordered wine, fettuccine alfredo, and then a dirty martini. After dinner I decided to wander. It probably wasn’t the safest choice, and I did it anyway, because it had rained and the whole city smelled of petrichor. Under a building I met two girls who had graduated from Syracuse. They were smoking, and we started talking. I told them I’d soon be moving to upstate New York. They offered me a cigarette, and I smoked with them. I asked if they knew where I could buy an umbrella, and they pointed me toward a dollar store.
I couldn’t find the store, and Google Maps stopped working. Then I bumped into a guy and asked him for directions. His name was James. He was from Australia and lived in London, he was traveling alone too, and he was so handsome I couldn’t believe he was talking to me. He walked me to the umbrella shop and asked what my plans were for the night. I said I didn’t have any, and he invited me to a jazz club he knew. We were walking under two umbrellas when he said we should share one, so he took mine and we walked under his. At the club we sat with drinks and talked. My mom called while we were there, and I was blushing the whole time. He talked a little about his ex-girlfriend, and I told him about my ex-boyfriend, since I had just gone through a breakup. On the walk back he kept me on the inside of the sidewalk, and he suggested we go see the Statue of Liberty or Staten Island together the next day. He walked me to my hostel like a perfect gentleman. I didn’t sleep at all that night. My stomach was full of butterflies, because nothing like that had ever happened to me before, and New York already felt magical.
I was up and ready by 7. He was supposed to come to my hostel at 10. He was staying at another hostel nearby, and I didn’t know which one. I texted him and called him, and he never saw my messages. He ghosted me. I cried for two hours and almost stayed in. Then I told myself I wasn’t going to waste the trip, and I went out in the same dress. In the afternoon he finally answered my last text, the one where I said I was worried something had happened to him. He wrote that he was alive, and that was all. I couldn’t understand how someone could pretend like that, and why he had played with me if he didn’t want to spend time with me. I guess that’s how life goes sometimes. It was raining when I walked across the Brooklyn Bridge, and the bridge looked so beautiful in the rain, gray and soft, with the city blurred behind it, that I forgot about him for a while. While I was in Chinatown, my master’s advisor from Oklahoma messaged that they wanted to schedule a meeting, and I panicked. I asked several places in Chinatown if I could take a call there, and they said no. A nightclub owner said yes, but the club hadn’t opened yet and I couldn’t buy anything, so it felt unfair to stay. I ended up in the basement of a local bookshop, lying on the carpet, attending the meeting and telling my professor I wasn’t feeling well. Afterward I ate dumplings at a little joint run by a Chinese woman, one of Anthony Bourdain’s recommendations, and I laughed like a maniac on the sidewalk while I ate them. In Little Italy, where I had gone for wine and tiramisu, the server gave me free focaccia because I was there by myself. That same day I met Linh, a Vietnamese woman from Oklahoma who was also on a solo trip in New York. I also met a guy named Terry who flirted with me, and after what James did, I didn’t let him take me on a date. On the subway, a 55-year-old man who told me he was a sexologist asked me out too, and I politely declined.
The next day was the best one. I had a posh lunch in the West Village and walked toward Times Square, and on the way a bird pooped on me. I had a reservation at Carmine’s, and I was nervous about it, because it’s a family restaurant and I was alone. After a long wait I got a table. Everyone stared at me, and I could tell they thought I’d been stood up. I hadn’t. I ordered oysters and two glasses of wine. At the next table was a girl with her mother and her uncle, and we started talking and became friends. I joined them, and we went bar hopping until midnight, or maybe 4 in the morning. At the end of the night we went to a karaoke bar, and Stephanie and I sang “Baby, Where the Hell Is My Husband” together.
The next morning I walked through Central Park and met Sydney, a dog walker who is also a great photographer. She took pictures of me on my phone. I went to a museum, very underdressed, and then to a fancy grocery store where I ate a crab cake. I went back to the hostel, changed into something nicer, and went to the Met. After the Met I found a hidden speakeasy I had been thinking about for a long time. There I met two amazing girls, one of whom was visiting New York to be with her friend, and we went on to a piano bar. When they played “Piano Man,” I cried while singing it at the top of my lungs. The day after that, I kept my promise to Sydney and met her for Mexican food at a little shack near Times Square. All through the trip I went to Anthony Bourdain’s spots, and I ate a lamb gyro bowl from a street cart. At the hostel there was also a Moroccan boy, only 18, who felt like a little brother to me. He smoked on the terrace, and I used to sit beside him and listen to his stories about Morocco. He took me to a local Arabic place with wonderful lamb and goat, and I loved every bite.
On my last day, my flight wasn’t until evening, so I had time. At the hostel I met Ilya, a Russian man who had studied physics. He was attractive and middle-aged, with a charming voice. I told him about my love for Dostoevsky and Brutalist architecture, and we talked for hours. Then I booked an Uber to the airport. I left James’s umbrella in the Uber, and it felt like the end of that story.
People often think of women as the weaker ones, the ones who need someone to walk them home. In New York, alone, I felt strong. I found my own way around a city I had only seen on screen, I ate where I wanted, I stayed out until 4 in the morning, and I said no to whoever I chose. As a woman, it was the most liberating thing I have ever done. Some men disappointed me, and that’s okay. The women carried me through: Linh, Stephanie, Sydney, the Syracuse girls, the two girls at the speakeasy. They reminded me how much female friendships matter. I paid for every part of this trip with my own money, and that made it feel even better. I spent more than I planned, and every dollar was worth it. It was the best trip of my life. I will always believe in traveling alone, and one day I hope to be a little cat lady living by myself in New York city, with a good library in my home.
